I rise from my scars. nothing hurts me now.
Even with Brennen’s magic, she knows that this won’t last forever.
She is a magician, but she is facing her greatest weakness in their onslaught of fire and destruction and she knows that she is a novice at harnessing her gift. She is not prepared for their constant battering of attacks, and her mind is cleaved in half with anguish for what her gift has done in Loess. The way that it warped as soon as she left to turn deadly despite her intentions to have it serve as a warning.
The inner core of her is shattered with the bloodshed and the pain.
The outer shell of her is furious with what has led here.
But it is only when Vulgaris throws himself into the volcano that she truly reaches her end. She angles her head up just in time to see him silhouetted by the fire and the smoke and the destruction and she barely has time to scream “No!” before he is falling. Something implodes within her, sending out a massive ripple of power that blows outward. Tears hit cheeks streaked with blood and mud, and she glows with it.
But she doesn’t stop.
She can’t.
She hears screams and feels Tephra itself burning. She can hear Magnus’ furious snarls as he continues to fight and she knows that his hide is split open in multiple spots. She can see them charging her and she feels when the stallion sends light that shatters through her shields. She sees the monster of dirt and ash writhing through the air and she pivots on her heel, crying out as she opens up a black hole intended to swallow it. Exhaustion grips at her but she ignores the way her body shakes.
Nothing matters.
She has to make it matter.
When the witch cries out, she feels her heart stutter in her chest but she doesn’t hesitate. The mountain begins to groan in distress and she immediately focuses on channeling the magic through her and Brennen into portals. They open up throughout Tephra, in the sky and on land. They are one-way doors to various lands throughout Beqanna. Some are to Loess, with the maze on the other side of the window. Some are to Nerine, some to the islands, and some even to the common lands.
She flies upward into the ash and the darkness that clouds her home and she begins to open them wider and larger. She glows like a star as she looks down to witness the carnage and destruction beneath her. She sees as Magnus runs to check on his family, the trail of blood smearing his golden sides and leaving a path in his wake. She sees the black panther and the tiger grappling together, their shoulders shredded; they fall through a portal together, unintentionally but irrevocably all the same.
To others, the weak ones (both Tephran and Loessian alike), she sends a wave of energy to either find their feet and make it to the nearest portal or be drawn in like gravity.
And finally, when she is certain she has done all she can do, she feels the final bit of magic begin to fade like a dying star in her chest. Blackness begins to creep over her vision.
She takes a shuddering breath and then begins to fall.
Her wings do not catch her as she descends, the serpentine scales reflecting the dying light.
The earth rises up to greet her like a wave and she is swallowed whole by the island before it crashes over her and the magma begins to make its way over the grave where she slumbers.
